Is the semiosphere post-modernist?

This paper provides arguments for and against M.Lotman’s (2002) contention that Y.Lotman’s seminal concept of semiosphere is of post-modernist (post-structuralist; Posner 2011) orientation. A comparative reading of the definitional components of the semiosphere, their hierarchical relationship and their interactions is undertaken against the two principal axes of space and subjectivity in the light of Kantian transcendental idealism, as inaugural and authoritative figure of modernity, the Foucauldian discursive turn and the Deleuzian (post) radical empiricism (sic), as representative authors of the highly versatile post-modernvernacular. This comparative reading aims at highlighting not only similarities and differences between the Lotmanian conceptualization of the semiosphere and the concerned modernist and postmodernist authors, but the construct’s operational relevance in a post-metanarratives cultural predicament that has been coupled with the so-called spatial turn in cultural studies (Hess- Luttich 2012)

Beyond the subversion / containment binary: Middlebrow fiction and social change

In the present article we argue that British middlebrow literature often adheres to conservative plot structures aimed at a generic market, and that its impact in socio-cultural terms requires and rewards scrutiny. As Jane Eldridge Miller observes, “it was not easy for [Edwardian] New Woman novelists to change the signification of strongly rooted conventions which associated marriage with feminine success and the suffering or death of the heroine with some kind of moral retribution”, avoiding the trap of narrative containment. We will examine the subversive potential within such containment, with suicide, one of its classical forms, as an example. To this purpose, we will use Victoria Cross’s novel Six Chapters of a Man’s Life (1903) to illustrate a distinctively middlebrow way of contesting constructions of gender and sexuality

The image as an event : the lives of images in M.#10 Marseille and So Little Time

An image is commonly thought of as having a flat, two-dimensional surface. However, numerous historical and contemporary artworks have successfully challenged this misleading presumption by exploring alternative ways of creating spatial and temporal images, such as the tableau vivant, holographic imaging technology and, most recently, immersive virtual environments. In line with this tendency, contemporary theatre and performance artists also play a role in expanding the definition of the image. This article analyses two contemporary theatre performances that stage the image as an event, as they ‘expand’ the image by bestowing on it the specific spatial and temporal logic of a theatrical event. Specifically, we consider how Romeo Castellucci’s M.#10 Marseille (2004) and Rabih Mroué’s So Little Time (2016) each in theirown way bring images to life within the theatre, exploring the self-reflexive and magical aspects of images, both within and outside the theatre

›Une sorte de remontée vers le corps‹. Skizze einer Ästhetik der körperlichen Responsivität im Ausgang von Roland Barthes’ Überlegungen zur Pseudo-Schrift

The sensory dimension of writing, which is never fully neutralised in the process of semiosis, remains aporetic in Derrida’s philosophy. I show how Barthes’ observations on pseudo-writing lead to his understanding of writing as a gesture, opening up post-structuralism to the body as absolutely non-repeatable, as the opposite of semiosis. The examination of Barthes’ account of the relationship between writing and the body leads to an aesthetic of physical responsiveness, which challenges the distinction between work, creator and viewer. In this regard ‘seeing’ can neither be reduced to the infinite decoding of signs nor to an immediate perception, but rather can be understood as the playful contact with signs. Barthes’ notion of writing contributes to overcoming the limits of Derrida’s account of the sensory quality of writing without jeopardiz- ing the philosophical gain of deconstruction

Lesestoffe deutscher Bürger in Kaschau in der Frühen Neuzeit

Lesestoffe deutscher Bürger in Kaschau in der Frühen Neuzei

Ingratitude and the Underground

Ingratitude and the Undergroun

Protest in Berlin: A Semiotic Reading

Massimo LeoneProtest in Berlin. A Semiotic Readin

Bone of My Bone, Flesh of My Flesh: Love in Crime and Punishment

Bone of My Bone, Flesh of My Flesh:Love in Crime and Punishmen